Tag: Great Recession

 Famous investor George Soros warned the other day of very severe consequences if the Euro wasn’t saved.

 “It seems to me that one still doesn’t understand what would happen if the euro collapsed,” Soros told the Swiss magazine in an e-mailed pre-release of tomorrow’s edition. “It would lead to a banking crisis that would be totally out of control.”

He even used the term “new Great Depression”. It sounds serious, especially since many have come out and said that the cost of saving the Euro is too high. Some say the chances of the Euro’s survival is 50-50, and that the Euro-bond plan would be nothing more than a band-aid.

So while everyone worries about a Great Depression 2.0, we overlook the fundamental reasons why the economy remains so weak.

House will take up unemployment benefits extension Thursday

By Vicki Needham, The Hill.com — Nov 17, 2010

The House has put a bill on Thursday’s floor schedule that would extend emergency unemployment benefits for three months, according to the schedule released Wednesday night by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, introduced the bill today that would extend federal benefits — up to 99 weeks in some states for those who have exhausted their state unemployment insurance — through Feb. 28.

The measure is on the suspension calendar and will require two-thirds vote to pass.

A 3 Months extension, on that precarious lifeline, for Millions.

Just a 2/3 Vote needed.

Good luck, folks, looks like you could be “On your Own” — given the priorities of Congress, lately.

Thank goodness.  It couldn’t have happen a day too soon.

NBC Nightly News (03-09-09) Tent Cities of Homeless Springing Up In Bad Times



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F94f_Ycsjs

Tent City, USA



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

  The National Bureau of Economic Research declared this week that the Great Recession ended over a year ago. Yet, for some reason, the average American isn’t ready to break out the champagne.

 “Every single one of the individuals who wrote the report needs a serious reality check,” said Bob Johnson of the Queens borough of New York, who is 46, had worked in communications and has been looking for a job for more than three years.

 The American working class is hurting. The unemployment rate is only marginally down from the peak and the economy has been losing jobs over the last three months. Households were $1.5 Trillion poorer last quarter, and $12.3 Trillion poorer than three years ago. Most of this is reflected in the crushed dreams of retirement. The poverty rate is at a 15-year high.

 Nevertheless, the economy is improving, right? That depends on who you ask.

There is a crack daylight, that may topple the Republican’s Wall of Inaction.

Voinovich breaks with GOP to push for small-business incentives

Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff — Sept 10, 2010

Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that would give President Obama and congressional Democrats a key victory on the economy in the final weeks before the November midterm elections.

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support Republican efforts to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional amendments. Most of the proposed GOP amendments “didn’t have anything to do with the bill” anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan “messaging.”

“We don’t have time for messaging,” Voinovich said. “We don’t have time anymore. This country is really hurting.”

Finally a Republican Senator with some Integrity, who is willing work for the folks, that Voted him into Office  (instead of working against their interests, for his own gain …)

When are we going to “nation build” in our own nation?

What are we waiting for?

Each bridge to fall down,

Every road to turn back to gravel,

Water mains to burst,

Grids to burn out?

To say nothing about the Investments in

Schools, and Computers, and Networks.

Small Businesses, Parks, EcoSystems, and Science?

and another thing, if “9-11 changed the world”,

when are we going to change our “soft targets”

to prevent the next 9-11?

All these Projects spell JOBS.

All these Projects are an Investment in OUR Future.

They are NOT a Hand Out.

They are Protecting Our OWN.

Another Labor Day has arrived, with FAR TOO MANY Citizens,

having FAR TOO LITTLE to Celebrate …

The first Rule of Holes: When you’re in one, STOP digging.

—  Molly Ivins

Stop Digging?   Check!

Heck, even Erin Burnett (of CNBC) admitted the Stimulus is working, today on MTP … that

“Without the stimulus we would be significantly worse off than we are now.”

— any serious economist says so. …  She has the charts.

so do we.

Instead of wringing our hands and exchanging insults and blame —

We should be, getting up to speed on,

How the Republicans Keep putting the Brakes on Progress!

For Example:

Republicans block small business plan in Senate

Donna Smith, Reuters – Jul 29 2010

Obama has been pushing for passage of the lending measure arguing that getting more capital into the hands of independent community bankers would lead to more small business loans. It is supported by independent bankers and business groups.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, small businesses have found it difficult to obtain loans that would help them expand as the economy recovers from the recession.

[…]

Senate Republicans blocked a $30-billion plan to help community banks boost lending to small businesses […]

Some Republicans have cast the small-business proposal as part of what they consider government overreach by the Obama administration.

Huh?  

Helping Small Businesses to put people back to work — that’s government overreach?

On what planet?

Let me jog your memory, about one of the more memorable things the Former VP said to a ‘fiscally responsible’ Treasury Secretary — right before he fired him …

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was told “deficits don’t matter” when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.

OnTheIssues.org

[…]

O’Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone — posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: “We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due.” A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

Source: Adam Entous, Reuters, on AOL News Jan 11, 2004

Maybe “deficits don’t really matter” — whenever the Gophers have the National “Credit Card” in THEIR Pockets — Then it’s Party time, for their friends and buddies in the corporate boardrooms?

Otherwise — it’s “evict the lazy bastards”.  

Cut the Funds for something — NOW!

As if we didn’t have enough volatile “wedge issues” to put the Nation on Perpetual Pause — Karl Rove has decided to stink up the place, with yet another outrageous Word Bomb …

GOPers Revise History: Say Dems Have Tax Hike Ticking Time ‘Bomb’

Christina Bellantoni, TPMDC — August 19, 2010

Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS this week detailed the “seven public policy initiatives” that will be most important for Congress next year. The group runs ads against Democrats across the country.

On the list at No. 1: “Stop the Obama tax hike time bomb scheduled to detonate on January 1, 2011.”

That’s not a typo. Rove’s group is claiming that Obama set the timer on that so-called “bomb.”

Talk about Revisionist History — of course consider the source — wasn’t it Rove, who claim to have the “Real Numbers” a few years back …

Gridlock

grid·lock

noun

1. A traffic jam in which no vehicular movement is possible, especially one caused by the blockage of key intersections within a grid of streets.

2. A complete lack of movement or progress resulting in a backup or stagnation:

“the political gridlock that prevented … the President and Congress from moving expeditiously to cut the budget”

gridlock – Chiefly US

noun

1. (Engineering / Automotive Engineering) obstruction of urban traffic caused by queues of vehicles forming across junctions and causing further queues to form in the intersecting streets

2. a point in a dispute at which no agreement can be reached; deadlock political gridlock

verb

1. to block or obstruct (an area)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gridlock

The ’99ers’ Share Their Stories

Paul Solman, PBS, MAKING SEN$E — August 6, 2010

I’m a 49 year old single mother of a 15 year old. I was laid off in September of 2008 and my unemployment ended in April of 2010. The way New Jersey calculates your base year made me ineligible for more than 79 weeks.

I apply to just about 50 jobs per week and I went to school and got some medical certifications that are just about useless. Everyone I speak with says “your certifications are great, but we’re really looking for some experience.”

I have been unable to pay my rent since June and expect to be evicted shortly. I have no one in a position to help, and can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like, telling my daughter that we have no home. […] Although I can’t consider suicide, I understand where these people are at!

That was just one of the personal stories out of the MILLIONS of fellow out-of-work Americans,

also known as the 99er’s …